


Spinning Starlight

by WanderingAlice



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:00:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27196162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WanderingAlice/pseuds/WanderingAlice
Summary: Crowley takes Aziraphale to visit his nebula, and gives him a practical lesson in star creation.--The Carina Nebula. His masterwork. The humans claim it is over two million years old, and he does not dispute it. Time as a concept had not yet been invented when he built the stars, of course, but he’d put so much work into it, so much heart, so much love. He can still remember it, losing himself in the act of creation. Eternities had passed him by unnoticed as he worked. Fire in his hands, elements burning white-hot around him as he painted the empty cosmos in brilliant colors the human eye can never see. Coaxing hydrogen and helium and a handful of other elements to come together, collapsing inward, spinning faster, gaining mass, gaining gravity, gaining heat. And then - fusion. The burning gas ignites, and a star is born. He knows of no better feeling in the world.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 55





	Spinning Starlight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wolfjackle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolfjackle/gifts).



> This was written for a prompt by Wolfjackle on tumblr, who asked for "Visiting the stars (or returning home from an interstellar visit)"
> 
> (Apologies to all astronomers for anything I got wrong, I'm not a scientist, just a dumb computer programmer who likes space.)

The Carina Nebula. His masterwork. The humans claim it is over two million years old, and he does not dispute it. Time as a concept had not yet been invented when he built the stars, of course, but he’d put so much work into it, so much heart, so much _love_. He can still remember it, losing himself in the act of creation. Eternities had passed him by unnoticed as he worked. Fire in his hands, elements burning white-hot around him as he painted the empty cosmos in brilliant colors the human eye can never see. Coaxing hydrogen and helium and a handful of other elements to come together, collapsing inward, spinning faster, gaining mass, gaining gravity, gaining heat. And then - fusion. The burning gas ignites, and a star is born. He knows of no better feeling in the world.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale’s soft voice reaches his ears across the emptiness of space. They hang here, weightless, in the void. Before them, his nebula. They’re near a formation the humans call the Mystic Mountain. He’d once given it another name, but then, his own name had been different then as well.

“My dear, are you… alright?” the angel asks, a soft hand resting on his shoulder.

He blinks and turns, finding Aziraphale’s concerned eyes on his face and not the majesty laid out before them. He smiles, bringing up a hand to cover Aziraphale’s fingers. “I’m fine, angel. Just… remembering.”

“Ah.” Aziraphale understands. Of course he understands. They’d all lost something in the War after all. “What was it like?”

He almost laughs. What was it like? As if he could put so complex a feeling into words.

“It was… it was _everything_ ,” he says, staring out at the vast stellar nursery he had created. “There were… five of us, I think, working on nebulae. I didn’t really care what the others were doing, so long as they stayed out of my way. We’d sing the Song of Creation, filling the void with our voices as we worked. All of us, connected directly to Source, to Creation itself.” He shakes his head, remembering the rush of euphoria as he touched the heart of it, the heady feeling of drawing out the fire of life, passing it through his own body and out into the universe.

“We were free to do whatever we wanted, within reason. So we experimented, playing with shapes and colors, making anything we could dream of.” He grins then, remembering, and moves them until they have the perfect angle. “Look there. Do you see it?”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale laughs, equal parts horrified and amused. The formation Crowley points out is called the Defiant Finger, and looks like nothing so much as a fist with the middle finger pointing straight up in a gesture as rude to angels as it is to humans. “I can’t believe they let you keep that!”

He shrugs. “Eh. That was the last one I built, just before everything went pear-shaped. They had bigger things to worry about then one lone starsmith telling them to fuck off.” He doesn’t want to think about that. That wasn’t why they were here. “But look, you wanted to see how stars were born, yeah? Over there.” He points to a smaller cluster of pockets of gasses, several of which might have enough mass to become a star. There is no starsmith here anymore, but that’s what they’d created the nebulae for - to create stars on their own, once the artist had been called to other things.

“They break away from the larger cloud and start to collapse. As they do, they get hotter and hotter and start to spin.” He points again, this time to a large protostar, not yet hot enough to sustain the nuclear fusion in a true star. “Once they hit a certain size, they start to get denser in the middle and form a core.”

Aziraphale gasps, looking at the massive amounts of gas surrounding the protostar. “It’s going to be enormous, isn’t it?”

Crowley shrugs. “Maybe, maybe not. Some of that gas will end up forming planets instead.”

“What about that one?” Aziraphale asks, pointing to a small cloud a little way apart from the others. “Will that be a star too?”

He shakes his head. “Nah. It’s too small, see?” he gestures to the other nascent stars, and their much larger clouds. “It might try, but it won’t get enough mass for it to ignite.”

“Oh.” The angel sighs, looking disappointed. “That’s a shame. Isn’t there something we could do?”

Crowley watches him watching the stars, and gets a mad idea.

“Angel,” he asks quietly. “Do you trust me?”

Aziraphale turns to look at him, startled. “Of course I do. You know that.”

“I mean really, _really_ trust me. I- there’s something I want to try, but you have to trust me completely. Any doubt, and the whole thing could fall apart.” He meets the angel’s clear blue eyes, willing him to understand what he was trying to say. “You can say no,” he adds. “I won’t be upset. If you have even a hint of-”

Aziraphale takes his hands in his. “I trust you,” he says firmly. No hesitation. No indecision. Like his words are built from the foundation of the universe. He moves one hand to cradle Crowley’s jaw. “With everything I am.”

Crowley sighs, taking a moment and leaning in to his caress. He’d known, of course, but it was so very nice to hear. “Good. That’s… good.” But then he straightens, moving away to hang in space behind his angel.

“Now,” he says, reaching around Aziraphale and guiding him into place, hands framing the struggling cloud. “Can you feel Creation? It should be all around you, like…” he tries to recall what it was like, so long ago. Creation has been lost to him since he Fell, but he can still remember how to reach it. “Like a humming in your soul. Do you feel it?”

“I… “ Aziraphale concentrates. “Yes. Yes, I feel it.” His voice goes distant, almost dreamy as he touches the source of all life.

“Envision it flowing around you, like a stream made of light,” Crowley instructs, keeping his own voice low and quiet. “Can you touch it? Draw out a tiny thread?”

“Oh!” Aziraphale jerks in his arms and Crowley reflexively clutches him close.

“Angel! Are you alright?”

Aziraphale swallows and nods, his focus broken. “I hadn’t expected… it felt as if I’d been struck by lightning.”

Crowley grimaces. He’d forgotten about the effect touching pure Creation could have. “Sorry angel. I forgot what it was like. We can stop and-”

“No,” the angel shakes his head, moving his hands back into the position Crowley had been holding them. I just needed a moment. Let’s continue.”

“Are you sure? We don’t have to keep going, not if it hurts you.” He’d far rather stop now, than have Aziraphale force himself to do something that caused him pain just because Crowley asked.

“No,” Aziraphale says again. “No, it doesn’t really hurt. Not like a lightning strike would hurt a human, at least. It was just strange.” When Crowley doesn’t reply he adds “Please? I’d like to keep going.”

“Alright.” Crowley never can resist for very long when Aziraphale says please.

He gets back into position behind the angel, holding his arms, this time more aware of his body’s cues, ready to put a stop to it all at any second if it looks like he’s becoming uncomfortable.

“Feel the stream of Creation.” He keeps his voice soft, even, just loud enough for Aziraphale to hear. “Reach into the light and pull out a single thread.” He can feel it as Aziraphale does so, the power appearing in his grasp, nearly overwhelming the demon’s senses. Now he can see it, too, the way he once had. Like molten gold, power flowing around Aziraphale’s hand, fizzing with little sparks of electricity that jolt against his essence.

“Good.” It’s an effort to keep his words steady. “Now pinch it off, just below your hand. Yes, just like that. And roll it between your palms. Careful now, don’t drop it.” He guides Aziraphale’s fingers, helping him shape his small piece of creation into a ball of light. Once formed, it hangs in the void between their hands, appearing as if it were at the center of the distant cloud of gas.

“Now pour it into those clouds,” he tells him, moving them closer until they can feed the fire of Creation into the building blocks of their star. At their touch the swirling gas seems to speed up, collapsing faster towards the center, even as it multiplies, more raw elements pulled directly from the stream of life and channeled through Crowley and Aziraphale. Faster and faster it spins, growing warmer and denser as it goes. Under the concentrated efforts of an angel what should take thousands of years happens in seconds.

“It’s almost a protostar,” Crowley murmurs. “Keep going. Make it hotter now.”

“I don’t… I don’t know how.” Aziraphale’s arms are trembling with the effort and he leans back against Crowley’s chest, straining just to guide that little bit of Creation.

“Trust me,” Crowley says, reaching out with his own essence, wrapping himself around the angel until he can feel Aziraphale’s hands as if they are his own. There is steel in his spine for all his softness, and Crowley calls to that strength now, blending it with his, focusing, mixing together like the gasses within their star, essence to essence, until -

Two become one.

It wouldn’t be possible without perfect trust between them. To open themselves up this way, for Crowley to be able to work through Aziraphale as if they were only one being, even the slightest hint of doubt would cause the union to crumble. It doesn’t. They move together, Aziraphale’s holy body protecting Crowley from the Heavenly forces he can no longer touch, Crowley guiding, sharing his knowledge, the veteran star-maker returning once last time to his ancient craft.

Their two, strong hands grip Creation, even as the power of it sings through their blood like lightning. Deftly, they reach out, spinning it, manipulating it, sending out _heat_ instead of matter now.

“2,000 Kelvin.” They split their focus, half still on heat, keeping it going as the solid core continues to grow. The other half sends out more of their power, helping shape a disk of gas and dust that has begun to form around their protostar. Mass from the disk is pulled into the core. The work of 1000 years passes in the blink of an eye.

“5,000 Kelvin. Halfway there.” Human temperature measurements, but they’ve lived among humans for so long their measurement scales make more sense than anything Heaven devised. Their hands burn from extended contact with Creation, but the holy nature of their body keeps them safe from harm.

“10,000 Kelvin,” one of their voices says. “Ignite.” A flash, and suddenly amid the gas and dust a bright light erupts at the center. Their star, finally alight. The disk of dust and gas continues to spin around it, smaller clumps coming together to form planets and asteroids, the building blocks of a solar system. They let it happen on its own, their focus is on the star. It stops pulling in matter but continues to spin. They pull the power of Creation away, slowly, carefully. This is where it could all go wrong. If they pull out too fast, it will collapse. Too slow, and the star will not be able to continue on its own.

At last, the Creation is gathered in a ball in their hands once more. The star still spins, shining with a steady yellow light. They breathe a sigh of relief. It is complete.

They reach back out to the stream of Creation, watching as it greedily absorbs their borrowed power until no hint of their interference remains. Then they turn back to their creation. The star they built together.

_Beautiful_ , half of their consciousness says, as the whole of them stairs in awe at what they made.

_Yes_ , the other half thinks, and pulls apart. Back into his own, proper body. What they have made is beautiful, but even more beautiful to him is the angel wrapped tightly in his arms. The light of their star shines on the angel’s face, and Crowley finds himself struck dumb by the wonder of it, entranced by the starlight reflecting in his eyes.

_Very beautiful_ , he thinks to himself, but he does not mean the star.

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale turns to him, “that was wonderful. Thank you.”

“Well,” he shrugs, an attempt at indifference made entirely futile by the smile he cannot hide. “You said you wanted to see how stars were born. Better this than a stuffy old documentary, right?”

Aziraphale laughs and kisses him, hands still warm from holding the forces of Creation pulling him in and holding him close. “Much better,” he agrees, resting his forehead against Crowley’s. “Truly, dearest. That was… beyond description.”

Crowley hums in agreement, then falls silent. It _had_ been wonderful, just as it had been so long ago, when he could work with pure Creation on his own, without an intermediary. The best feeling in the world, he had believed. But now, he realizes, he knows of something even better. Holding his angel in his arms, being held by him, watching the love and joy on his face. It is, by far, the best feeling he has ever known.

**Author's Note:**

> [This fic is also reblogable on my tumblr!](https://wanderingalicewrites.tumblr.com/)


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